I Loved Him First
by bakaprincess85
Summary: Waking up in an entirely different universe, Aura has to adapt to her new life, which is not always easy. As she joins Shepard's team on Normandy SR1 and then later on the SR2, her future suddenly seems... frightening and not at all what she imagined it to be. Thank the Spirits for the Turian who was at her side from the beginning.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** Everything in this story belongs to Bioware. I'm just playing in their sandbox and making sand pies with their tools.

**Author's Note:** Yes, yes, I know that I still haven't started writing a sequel to Hoping For a Better Future and neither have I updated any of my other stories, but I've been museless for a while now and this idea has been running through my head and my dreams for a while now, so I'm getting it out of my system. I don't know how often I'll update this thing nor how long it will be - I just want to write! :)

And sorry for the short chapter - it's a prologue, they're supposed to be short! XD

But hey, at least I'm starting to write again!

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**I Loved Him First**

**Prologue**

I don't really know how to start this story. It still seems like a dream to me. And as I gaze upon the sleeping face of my mate, I wonder how I got to be so lucky as to have him in my life.

My fingers go to the bite mark on my left shoulder as if of their own accord as I smile at the ridges on my skin from the scarring the mark left. A nuzzle on my head brings me out of my pondering as I turn to look at my mate's predatory blue eyes, feeling the excitement flush through my body as he turns his attention to where my fingers are.

I can't help but smile at the growl he lets out.


	2. Chapter I The BOOM That Was

******Disclaimer:** Everything in this story belongs to Bioware. I'm just playing in their sandbox and making sand pies with their tools.

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**I Loved Him First **

**Chapter I – The BOOM That Was**

I can't help but feel the irony of the situation. I might not have gotten a gunship missile to the face like Garrus did, but feeling the broken glass of my car's side windows cut the left side of my face into ribbons as I try and fail to shield it with my broken arms does remind me a bit of it. It's not as hot as the missile probably was, but the pain of it still sears through me like molten lava.

My head feels light and sticky from where the blood is gushing out of the hole the broken glass created and my hands hurt from being broken. I can't describe the pain in them – it's all encompassing and it's making me breathe harshly through what remains of my nose.

I do not know what happened. One moment I am driving forward as I get the green light, and the next, there's a loud crash, and crinkle of broken glass, and I can see an orange explosion in front of me as my car's motor catches fire. I can feel my legs burn as the heat reaches them, but I cannot move them away, seeing as I am pinned between the wheel, the air bag, the windshield and the car seat.

I can hear sirens blaring in the distance, but I know that they would be too late. I can smell the burnt flesh of my legs and my head is becoming more and more heavy and I can still feel the red blood spilling from where the glass cut my face.

I blink slowly, feeling drowsier by the second.

I close my eyes. _I'm sleepy, _I think to myself as I fall into the black abyss.


	3. Chapter II A Whole New World

**Disclaimer: **Everything in this story belongs to Bioware. I'm just playing in their sandbox and making sand pies with their tools.

**I Loved Him First**

_**Chapter**** II – A Whole New World**_

I wake up to a strange metallic-looking ceiling and the smell of sterile equipment. There is a soft beeping noise beside me that quickens in its tempo in synchronisation with my heartbeat as I open my eyes. For a few seconds everything is silent and then a strange looking thing appears above me. It looks like a dinosaur mixed with a bit of bird in its genetic build somewhere. It has something like feathers dipped in cement growing from its forehead and extending a bit behind its head. I can see its teeth from the holes in its mouth and they look sharp.

For some strange reason, I have a feeling that I am looking at a turian. A strange part of my mind lets me know that those cemented feathers are actually called a fringe and that the tear-drop things hanging on both sides of its face are called mandibles. As to how I know this, I have no idea.

It is wearing a blue visor over its left eye, and its right eye is a light blue that reminds me of the blue sky over my house. It has tattoos all over his face and their colour is the same blue as my eyes. It is talking quietly with a red-haired woman that is standing next to the bed I'm lying on. I have no idea what it's talking about. The woman, I can understand – she speaks English. The turian is talking in guttural sounds that make my spine tingle. The woman seems to understand it and replies back. I do not follow their conversation, instead watching the turian's face. Its mandibles twitch sometimes and other times they look frozen against his face.

The woman the turian is talking to has red hair reaching just below her ears and light green eyes. Her English has a slight French accent. It feels like déjà vu. I feel like I should know her, or at least her name, but my mind feels foggy and I have a feeling that I have a lot of painkillers running through my system. I know I would have pumped myself full of them after a car accident like that.

I am surprised that I am still alive.

There is a sudden silence around me and I see that the doctor and the turian are looking at me. For a few seconds everything is silent and then the doctor moves closer to my bed, holding a hand in front of her. I blink as the hand glows orange and an image of a tool blinks around it.

An omni-tool, my tired brain tells me, though how I knew that, I cannot explain.

"The cybernetics seem to have started integrating into your skin with no problems," she informs me as she passes her glowing hand over my left cheek. The cheek that was sliced into ribbons by glass not long ago.

I frown a little, as I don't feel that tugging feeling associated with stitches. My tongue moves of its own accord as it pokes the inside of my left cheek. Soft and pliable tissue meets its tip and I am surprised that, once again, there is no tugging feeling. The only anomaly I can detect is a slight metallic taste in my mouth, though it does not taste like blood.

"It will leave a scar, though," says the doctor apologetically as she moves her glowing hand away and I see it blink out and her hand once again looks normal.

I can't stop myself from saying, "Some men like women with scars..." as though I have heard something like it somewhere before and found it amusing. "Mind you, most of those men are krogan."

Krogan. Another word that I have never heard in my life before and yet it seems as if I've always known what it means. Krogan. An alien species of large reptilian bipeds native to the planet Tuchanka.

I hear something like a laugh coming out from the turian's mouth and see his (I am sure at this point that the turian is indeed, a male) mandibles stretch wide in an amused grin.

My voice surprises me. It is still the same voice I always had, but there is something just underneath it. I frown.

"Yes, I imagine your voice must sound alien to you," the red-headed woman continues, "your voice-box was completely shredded and we had to add some cybernetics to it to make it work again. The subharmonics will take some time to get used to – I am afraid I only had a turian cybernetic voice-box on hand, so I put that in."

I shouldn't feel surprised at this point in time, but I am. Just yesterday I would have no idea what she is talking about and yet, I can understand what she just told me perfectly. I am now aware that the turians communicate more with subharmonics than with words and that I am one of the few humans to have been implanted with a turian implant, and the only one to have survived the operation. All of the humans before me died when the implants they received were rejected.

"I guess I am lucky to be alive then," I say with a wry smile.

The doctor and the turian exchange looks. I can see that the doctor looks surprised, and I guess that the turian, his mandibles tightly against his face, looks the same.

Then the turian turns to me and I hear a string of guttural sounds and a few growls as he talks to me. I have no idea what he just said.

"I am afraid that I don't understand you," I tell him.

I can see the doctor and the turian exchanging glances again. The turian growls something at the doctor. She nods and approaches me with her omni-tool again. This time she touches the right side of my head near my ear and I feel a small twinge of pain as she puts something on me.

"I apologize if this hurt," she says when she pulls her hand away. I shake my head, feeling even dizzier than before. I guess she has upped my painkiller doze again to prevent me from feeling the headache that I would probably have right now if I could feel it.

"Just a small twinge," I say with honesty in my voice.

"Can you understand me now?" the turian asks. And I do. Understand him, I mean. His voice is deep and rough and has a similar undertone that mine has, although mine is a bit lighter. Probably because I am a female. I nod at him and see the doctor walk away to give us some privacy.

"My name is Garrus Vakarian and I work for C-Sec," he introduces himself as he sits down next to me.

C-Sec. Citadel Security, my brain supplies me with information again. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a police officer wants to talk to me. I mean, I know something is different from before, and I don't mean just me dying. I know that I am not where I was only a few hours ago. The air around me feels different somehow. And the technology around me makes me aware that I am not home anymore. I've never seen technology that works like that. I have never heard of cybernetics before, even though I know what they are (but I didn't know that a few hours ago).

There is definitively something strange going on here.

"I'm Aura Coole," I say, trying to concentrate on Garrus Vakarian and not let my mind wonder too much. I will have enough time to think later.


	4. Chapter III Trusting the Turian

**Disclaimer: **Everything in this story belongs to Bioware. I'm just playing in their sandbox and making sand pies with their tools.

**I Loved Him First**

_**Chapter III – Trusting the Turian**_

As a few days pass, I notice that the turian keeps returning to the hospital. At first, I think it's because of the doctor. They seem to be at least acquaintances if not friends. Then, as days go by, I realize that he keeps coming to visit me. I feel strangely touched by it.

Here I am, a stranger in an unknown world, and the only thing, or person, that is consistent in it so far, is the turian.

Or as he introduced himself to me, Garrus Vakarian.

He's the C-Sec officer in charge of my case (apparently, I _am_ the case, appearing on the Citadel out of nowhere, and without any ID to verify who I am), but I still feel that he keeps visiting me not because of that, but because he wants to get to know me better. After getting the neural implant added to my repertoire of cybernetics, it's easier for me to talk to him as I can understand him now.

I often get confused by the subharmonics he uses – I am not familiar with "feeling sounds" as I call them. Nevertheless, he explains the different sounds he makes when he hears my own uncontrolled and confused subharmonics in reply.

He is unusually kind for a turian, I find out, after I meet another turian called Pallin.

Pallin is, for the lack of a better word, an ass. He has a deep-seated dislike for humans. For a few moments I wonder why, but then that strange glitch in my brain as I start to call it, supplies me with information on the First Contact War or Relay 314 Incident as the turians call it and I can understand why he doesn't trust humans. We are a greedy bunch after all.

I still have no idea what that glitch in my brain is. It is most active when I sleep. I dream of strange things that I have never dreamt of before. I dream of strange, but terrifying sentient machines that call themselves the Reapers, of different species in this universe, of a woman called Commander Shepard, and the strangest of all is a dream I dreamt when I took my afternoon nap.

The dream is of Garrus and a salarian called Dr. Saleon. I see Garrus follow him to the Docking Area, I see Garrus order to shoot the ship down, and I see Garrus's bitter face (I am getting better at reading the turian expressions) when his orders are overruled and the ship with Dr. Saleon gets away. I see him storm away in anger and when I wake up a few hours later, I see an angry Garrus pacing in the hospital.

"What's wrong?" I ask him. He turns to me, growls angrily, and then sits himself next to my bed in his usual chair.

"A suspect got away from me," he says and I frown. Before I can stop myself from opening my mouth, it is already running away from me. "Was it Dr. Saleon?"

He freezes, his mandibles tucked firmly against his face, as he stares at me. I realize, perhaps somewhat sluggishly from waking up only a few moments ago, that what I thought was only a dream, is in fact, a vision. I pale as Garrus stands up from the chair and comes to my bed, staring me in the eyes the entire time.

I ought to feel afraid of the turian invading my personal space, but I don't. I cannot explain it, but whenever Garrus is near me, I feel safe. And I ought to, he's big for a turian (way bigger than my 5' 3") and he's a crack shot with a sniper rifle, or so he claims (smugly so).

"How did you know that?" he asks me with a deep voice I have not heard him use with me before. I realize that it is anger. His subharmonics trill with a sound that makes me know that he's suspicious. I bite my lips as I feverishly think of what to say. However, in the end, I decide to tell him the truth. He is the only person I think of as a friend in this universe – the only person that I can see myself trusting with what I just realized.

"I just dreamt about it," I say, knowing that it's a bad explanation. Before he can say anything else, I plunder ahead, "I've been having these dreams ever since I woke up in this hospital. Most of the time I don't understand them. But I dreamt about you ordering the security to shoot a ship down and then they overruled you and the ship with Dr. Saleon got away. I dreamt about you finding out that the salarian was harvesting organs from living people and then selling them."

The hospital is silent for a while after that. I begin to get nervous that he wouldn't believe me or that he would think me crazy and decide to lock me away.

"You _do_ have strange dreams," he finally says as he turns to look away from my face.

"I think they're visions," I finally admit to myself and to him. "Visions of the past, present and future."

"How do you figure that one out? Perhaps it was just a fluke that you dreamt about this just now," he says. I can see that he has trouble believing in what I'm telling him.

"Then how do I know all this stuff?" I ask, while my subharmonics trill with irritation. "How do I know that the Protheans were wiped out by a sentient machine race called the Reapers? How do I know that your sister's name is Solana? How do I know that Commander Shepard is coming to the Citadel in a few months? How do I know-"

"All right, all right, I believe you," he interrupts me, his subharmonics humming with comfort and confusion.

"Then would you believe me if I told you that I'm from another universe?" I ask him the question that was burning in my head from the moment I realized what was happening. I still can't believe that I'm trusting him with all this. I can see his mandibles snapping together in shock again. I seem to be giving him a lot of shocks lately. I almost smile at the thought.

"Another universe?" he finally asks.

"Yes, it was 2020 when I died in my universe, and then I woke up here," I tell him, fiddling with my fingers as I think of my death.

"You died?" he asks with his mandibles still frozen.

"I think so. I got into a car accident. I can remember my face being sliced into ribbons by the side window, and the car's motor exploding, and my feet burning, and then I remember feeling sleepy, and then nothingness," I say, staring out the window as I recall what happened. Then I turn to look him in the eyes and say, "And then, I wake up in here. I didn't know what was going on, or what you were. Then something in my brain told me that you were a turian. At first, I thought you were a dinosaur with some bird genetic material mixed in."

"What's a dinosaur?" he asks me. I grin at him. Out of everything I just told him, he chooses to focus on this.


End file.
